I have been a CPA for over 30 years focusing on taxation. I have extensive experience with partnerships, real estate and high net worth individuals.
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War Tax Resisters - Don't Call Them Frivolous

Seal of the United States Internal Revenue Service. The design is the same as the Treasury seal with an IRS inscription. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Despite my ability to find large amounts of humor in original source tax material, taxes are a serious matter. The IRS has been directed by Congress to stamp out frivolity in tax submissions. Code Section 6702 requires the Service to make a list of frivolous tax positions. There is some pretty wacky stuff on the list like the idea that you can cut your tax by writing “nunc pro tunc” on your return (They don’t say anything about “Ali ali oxen free”. Maybe you can try that). There is one item on the list of frivolous positions, that I don’t like to call frivolous:

The First Amendment permits a taxpayer to refuse to pay taxes based on religious or moral beliefs.

That is what Elizabeth Boardman was in US District Court over. Ms. Boardman has been at peace activism for a long time. She is an author of several books including “Taking A Stand: A Guide To Peace Teams And Accompanimnet Projects”. She went to Iraq to act as part of a peace team, where she tells me she met my good friend Tom Cahill. I asked Tom for a little more background on her, but his memory of her is a little hazy. Frankly, it is understandable. Tom is much more memorable than most people you will meet. Like the IRS, the District Court did not have much sympathy for her views. Here is some of the story:

When filing her federal tax returns for the 2007 and 2008 tax years, Plaintiff fully completed the returns with accurate information but remitted only about half of her federal income tax liability. In a letter attached to the tax returns, Plaintiff explained that “her conscience and religious beliefs would not allow her to pay the full amount due.” Plaintiff’s letter also offered evidence that the withheld funds were on deposit with a financial institution and maintained that she would pay the funds if they were allocated toward peaceful purposes.

Further correspondence between Plaintiff and Defendant [IRS] resulted in Defendant stating that Plaintiff’s justification was frivolous and not supported by law. Once Plaintiff’s argument was deemed “frivolous,” the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006 (“TRHCA”) allowed Defendant to deny any additional administrative or judicial review. As a result, Plaintiff’s demand for a Tax Court determination was unsuccessful. Plaintiff also claims that Defendant misrepresented various aspects of the tax collection process and misconstrued Plaintiff’s statements. Plaintiff further alleges that Defendant’s threats of imminent seizure compelled Plaintiff to pay her outstanding liability for the 2008 tax year.

…….Plaintiff also takes offense to the word “frivolous” being used to describe a taxpayer’s reliance on moral or religious grounds as a justification for refusing to pay their taxes. Although Plaintiff claims that she does not challenge the tax system or “seek to restrain assessment or collection of tax,” she does request a permanent injunction forcing Defendant to promulgate new procedures for collecting taxes. In doing so, Plaintiff “seeks to enforce the intent of Congress, which is to protect and preserve an established religious practice.”

The District Court was with the IRS.The Court has no doubt that ruling in Plaintiff’s favor would negatively impact Defendant’s established methods of assessing taxes. It is also clear that compelling Defendant to adopt procedures catering to the religious or moral views of every taxpayer would significantly burden tax collection. Indeed, the costs of administering the tax system may become prohibitively expensive, threatening the system’s integrity, if Defendant allocated tax revenue based on the individualized beliefs of each taxpayer. Thus, the Court agrees with Defendant that Plaintiff’s suit challenges statutory framework pertaining to tax assessment and collection, and, if Plaintiff is successful, she would “impermissibly restrain and hamper [Defendant's] ability to assess and collect taxes.”

Ms. Boardman’s attorney, Robert Kovsky, thinks the District Court did not grasp their point. He wrote to me:

Our legal position is set forth in the Complaint and in our Opposition to the Motion to Dismiss. Both documents are available on my website at www.kovsky.com To summarize the legal position: Elizabeth is maintaining a religious practice of war tax resistance similar to practices that have been carried on by many persons for many years. The practice requires filing of full and complete tax returns, accompanied by a refusal to pay in part or in whole for reasons based on religion or conscience. It is understood that the IRS will move to collect any unpaid amount, plus statutory costs and penalties. The resister feels compelled by religion or conscience to follow this route rather than to pay as of their own free will for war and weapons.

We contend that the practice of religious war tax resistance was given safe harbor in an Act of Congress in 1982 and has been recognized by the courts. It appears from the experience of Elizabeth, as alleged in the Complaint, that the IRS is now trying to suppress such practices. The policy of the IRS set forth on its website is to declare that such a practice is “frivolous.” We contend that Elizabeth’s practice is protected by the Free Exercise of Religion Clause of the First Amendment. We contend that the IRS is required by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 to respect and accommodate the practice.We believe that the District Court did not properly address our contentions in its decision to dismiss the case and we have filed an appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Just today, the Court of Appeals filed a Time Schedule Order setting initial dates for the filing of briefs. As of now, our opening brief is due on or before April 8, 2013.

You may want to check out the briefs he provides in his link to get a better feel for the argument. I can understand the IRS not having a lot of patience with this activity, but then I always remember Henry David Throreau. Thoreau’s extremely influential work “Civil Disobedience” was inspired by a night he spent in the Concord jail after he refused to pay poll tax to protest the Mexican War. For more information on War Tax Resistance check this out.

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Dear Lillian: Number 41 passed on the CDs from Tom Zart. Thank you for thinking of me. I am thankful for your efforts to honor our brave military personnel and their families. America owes these courageous men and women a debt of gratitude, and I am honored to be the commander in chief of the greatest force for freedom in the history of the world. Best Wishes.

Sincerely, George W. Bush

SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF WORLD WAR III

Our sons and daughters serve in harm’s way To defend our way of life. Some are students, some grandparents Many a husband or wife.

They face great odds without complaint Gambling life and limb for little pay. So far away from all they love Fight our soldiers for whom we pray.

The plotters and planners of America’s doom Pledge to murder and maim all they can. From early childhood they are taught To kill is to become a man.

They exploit their young as weapons of choice Teaching in heaven, virgins will await. Destroying lives along with their own To learn of their falsehoods too late.

The fearful cry we must submit And find a way to soothe them. Where defenders worry if we stand down The future for America is grim.

Now’s not the time to fight one another Or kiss our enemy’s cheek. All through history it remains the same The strong enslave the weak.

May God continue to bless America Refusing evil, the upper hand. It’s up to us to stay resolute Defending the liberty of Man.

WAR

As war is fought it takes charge And events spin out of control. The madness of men can alter the soil Which nourishes the roots of their soul.

Many things will forever change Far more then wished to be. As the wrath of war starts to destroy Those things we fight to keep free.

War is the greatest plague of man Religion, state, and sanity. Any scourge is more preferred Than the one which disables humanity.

When war breaks out, boundaries change And all who die are a token Of the rage that must run it’s course Before words of peace are spoken.

The bottom line for those of us who believe that participation in war is wrong based on our ethical, moral and or religious beliefs is that PAYING FOR WAR IS PARTICIPATION IN WAR. To pay for the drones, the weapons our nation uses, the percentage of our tax dollars that fuel the American military machine is against our conscience. As conscientious objectors to war we refused to participate in the Vietnam War and today we refuse to participate in the wars our nation is fighting whether that be the war in Afghanistan, or Pakistan, of the war on terrorism. Our conscience calls us to choose another path. This country has a long tradition of the refusal of taxes for war by those whose religious beliefs do not allow them to pay for war. The Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act, HR 1191 in the 112th Congress, would establish a Peace Tax Fund which would honor the conscientious positions of those whose religious beliefs do not allow for participation in war in any form. Under the Selective Service System we have an established method for determining who is a conscientious objector to war. The Congressional hearings held on the Peace Tax Fund bill pointed out that should the IRS respect such a conscientious position, it would result in more tax dollars being collected each year. As conscientious objectors to war and participation in war, we are not saying we don’t want to pay taxes. Like Thoreau we are saying we can not in good conscience pay for war. Congressman John Lewis plans to introduce the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Act into the 113th Congress. We should all write our Representatives in the Congress and ask her or him to become co-sponsors of this legislation.

These cases always make for interesting reading – I haven’t read too extensively on the subject because I would never represent an individual in such circumstances as they clearly need an attorney, however I’ve often wondered if anyone tried this from the conservative side of the fence… for example not paying a tax because of a woman’s issues based stance. In 2013 instead of worry about randomly prorating it they could just not pay 3.8% of capital gains tax for example. I can almost garuntee that this will be a court case in a few short years.

The protest cases that are from the “right” so to speak tend to be about the income tax being invalid because the 16th amendment wasn’t passed or a misreading of a statute or court case or something along those lines, sovereign citizens for example. The War Tax Resisters don’t tend to question that the law is the law in the same way.

It just so happens that I have been jousting with Ed Umpervitch on Kent Hovind’s FaceBook page about that sort of thing.

While he hasn’t been open and honest enough and come out and embrace the “sovereign citizen” position, he has been harping on and on and on about whether or not folks are “private” or “public” persons.

I’ve been trying to get him to just “get it off his chest”, but he is reluctant to actually come out and explain what he is getting at.

Interestingly, he has deleted many of his own postings there, but I’ve got the discussion in my archives.

For those who want to review what is currently available on Kent Hovind’s FaceBook page, here is that link:

http://www.facebook.com/drkenthovind

The discussion is under the Kent Hovind Christmas Blog entry dated December 21, 2012. The latest exchanges between Ed and me took place just this morning.

Peter, it just so happens that after I advised Ed, via the Kent Hovind FaceBook page, that I had introduced him to the Forbes audience as noted above, he has not returned to our conversation over there.

Maybe he will be back, maybe not!

It doesn’t look like he’s going to be showing up here to challenge some more worth adversaries regarding his “public” v. “private” hobby.